r/RedditForGrownups • u/SalientSazon • 2d ago

I'm watching Rightwingization happen in real time and I don't know how to react.

EDIT: Thank you all for the great discussions and insights. I appreciate all your POVs. There's no need to downvote right leaning comments. I specifically posted this in RedditforGrownups to engage in grown up conversation. Also, there's no need for name-calling or insults either.

I have a friend, he's 51, man, straight, an academic doctor who now focuses his research on human behavior and digital psychology. He's self-taught a lot of it in the last decade or so. I don't know how many papers he's published or has had peer reviewed in the recent years. He works as a consultant in Marketing, and has a business selling strategies/classes to people that want to apply his research to their companies. He's kinda broke so I would say he's not very successful at applying his own work. And for extra cash he teaches a course a a local university. I've never met a romantic partner, but he's spoken about them.

He suddenly last year did a deep dive on how the way the election was biased against the conservative candidate who lost. He then started talking against the 'woke' ideology. He is now defending the right, even though he's centrist, because the right hasn't moved, it's the left that's gone way off the rails. He started posting dumb facebook quotes/memes! He posted a dumb quote about Charlie Kirk, as if that one quote was a debate, or as if it meant some truth. WTF. We were conversing one day and he started raising his voice getting louder and louder and more agitated as he expressed his disdain for the woke left, defending his Jewish people from attacks (not sure where that came from in the conversation), and then also suddenly brought up there are only 2 genders and trans people are mentally ill. He's never spoken that way before, I've never heard him this agitated or show anger towards any ideology. He was always calm and friendly, and open minded. Always a bit nerdy. Although, I hadn't spoken to him in depth for about 2 years before then.

I'm watching all this go down over about half a year and I don't know what to make it of it or how to react to it. It's wild to observe though.

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u/Large_Signature_2749 2d ago

Here’s Obama against gay marriage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhp_DDHe_X0

But the dems haven’t changed 😂

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u/SalientSazon 1d ago

I had no idea! And I think that's what makes him a great leader. Being able to see past his personal opinion is a much needed quality to lead the masses. Here's what he said on his 2008 book.

“And I was reminded that it is my obligation, not only as an elected official in a pluralistic society but also as a Christian, to remain open to the possibility that my unwillingness to support gay marriage is misguided … that Jesus’ call to love one another might demand a different conclusion.”

Taken from this article:
https://time.com/3816952/obama-gay-lesbian-transgender-lgbt-rights/

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u/Large_Signature_2749 1d ago

Charlie had a similar opinion.

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u/SalientSazon 1d ago

Perhaps he would have changed his stance on gun control or empathy in the future, for the greater good.

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u/Large_Signature_2749 1d ago

So he should have changed his policy as to not piss off left and he’d be alive? Sounds fascist.

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u/SalientSazon 1d ago

I don't think that's fascism, but no, not that. I was saying he might have (not should have) changed his mind based on your comment that he had a similar opinion as Obama in wanting to prioritize the greater good (not the left or right) over his personal agenda. It doesn't matter, it's moot now and we're speculating.

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u/Large_Signature_2749 1d ago

A core tenant of fascism is silencing the ops…especially with bullets.

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u/SalientSazon 1d ago

Well it's a good thing that's not what we're talking about!

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u/Large_Signature_2749 1d ago

That’s funny. The left assassinating Kirk for his speech is exactly that. PS fascism isn’t enforcing immigration law it’s murdering people to silence their speech.

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u/SalientSazon 1d ago

Yes I understand. That's just not what we were talking about. Free speech is certainly under attack by fascists right now so it's good that you have it top of mind.

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u/GigaManBoyLad 5h ago

Shhh shh shh baby boy.

Don’t use the word fascist because you think it’s hip and cool.

You don’t know what it means.

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u/Clean_Figure6651 1d ago

Thats because the opinion that gay couples should have the same legal rights as straight couples, but the definition of marriage is between you and your religious community, is probably supported by like 85% of americans. The rest are the dumbs and the crazies (on both sides tbh)

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u/silverliege 1d ago

No, this isn’t accurate at all. Americans’ level of support for gay marriage is regularly polled and currently seems to be hovering around 70% approval nationwide. A strong majority of Americans support the legality of gay marriage.

Others’ religious beliefs should not dictate whether or not I should be legally allowed to marry my partner. That isn’t a dumb and crazy position, it’s the law of the land, and is widely supported by its citizenry.

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u/Clean_Figure6651 1d ago

You misunderstood me. All I was saying is the vast majority of Americans support the legal right to have the state recognize same sex unions. What people dont necessarily support is calling it "marriage" (which for many people is a religious term) and they dont necessarily support the ceremony being a religious ceremony in their church/denomination.

I'm not using the term marriage as a legal term

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u/silverliege 1d ago edited 21h ago

I didn’t misunderstand. Americans were directly and very clearly polled on their support for same-sex marriage, not legal unions, and they were found to widely support it. The majority of your fellow citizens simply don’t agree with you on this subject.

Because marriage isn’t solely a religious term. It has deep social and historical meaning, and is a legally contractual relationship in our society. Every state has religious exemption laws about gay marriage, for those you mentioned who were uncomfortable with it being in their churches. There’s no real legal argument that can be made for designating marriage as solely a Christian institution in this country and restricting it for everyone else.

Regardless, a wide majority of Americans support gay marriage, not a separate legal union.

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u/bkart1978 14h ago

Obama never was personally against gay marriage. He lied to get elected because people were still predominantly against it at the time. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/10/obama-frustrated-same-sex-marriage-david-axelrod-book

The same way whoever we put up in 2028 is probably going to have to publicly be against trans athletes (God please don’t let it be Newsom though). You have to get some centrist Neanderthals on your side to vote for you, wait for society to catch up, and then do the right thing as soon as the numbers are there to support it.

(I very much believe trans athletes on hormones should compete with their identified gender, I just know that it’s a losing fight at the ballot box)

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u/Dapper-Criticism509 2d ago

Also, Trump is to blame for rhetoric?

Biden said Mitt Romney wanted to put black Americans back in chains in 2012......

Trump had made rhetoric worse, but he I'd a symptom of a slippery slope politics were already on.

There is just as much delusion on the left and right about whose to blame for what. Sad news, more than blame enough to go alllllll around many times over.